July 8, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Other Defence
HUDSON, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BAE Systems has been awarded funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to integrate machine-learning (ML) technology into platforms that decipher radio frequency signals. Its Controllable Hardware Integration for Machine-learning Enabled Real-time Adaptivity (CHIMERA) solution provides a reconfigurable hardware platform for ML algorithm developers to make sense of radio frequency (RF) signals in increasingly crowded electromagnetic spectrum environments.
The up to $4.7 million contract, dependent on successful completion of milestones, includes hardware delivery along with integration and demonstration support. CHIMERA's hardware platform will enable algorithm developers to decipher the ever-growing number of RF signals, providing commercial or military users with greater automated situational awareness of their operating environment. This contract is adjacent to the previously announced award for the development of data-driven ML algorithms under the same DARPA program (Radio Frequency Machine Learning Systems, or RFMLS).
RFMLS requires a robust, adaptable hardware solution with a multitude of control surfaces to enable improved discrimination of signals in the evolving dense spectrum environments of the future.
“CHIMERA brings the flexibility of a software solution to hardware,” said Dave Logan, vice president and general manager of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Systems at BAE Systems. “Machine-learning is on the verge of revolutionizing signals intelligence technology, just as it has in other industries.”
In an evolving threat environment, CHIMERA will enable ML software development to adapt the hardware's RF configuration in real time to optimize mission performance. This capability has never before been available in a hardware solution. The system provides multiple control surfaces for the user, enabling on-the-fly performance trade-offs that can maximize its sensitivity, selectivity, and scalability depending on mission need. The system's open architecture interfaces allow for third party algorithm development, making the system future-proof and easily upgradable upon deployment.
Other RF functions, including communications, radar, and electronic warfare, also can benefit from this agile hardware platform, which has a reconfigurable array, front-end, full transceiver and digital pre-processing stage. Work on these phases of the program will take place at BAE Systems' sites in Hudson and Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Dallas, Texas.
April 19, 2021 | International, Land
The agreement combines L3Harris’ open system design and equipment manufacturing leadership with the maturity and modularity of American Rheinmetall Vehicles’ Lynx next-generation fighting vehicle for an OMFV offering that is...
May 1, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― Because fewer than 20 firms sought to apply for $17 billion in federal loans for Defense Department suppliers hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration is weighing how to broaden the eligibility requirements, a top Pentagon official said Thursday. “The challenge is that this $17 billion worth of loans comes with some fairly invasive kind of riders, and I think companies have to think very carefully about whether that makes good business sense for them,” Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord said at a Pentagon news conference. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose agency is implementing the loans, is requiring public companies seeking a share of $17 billion in coronavirus-related relief offer an equity stake to the government. “It may not be as interesting as for private companies, so that's one of the differentiators I see,” Lord said. The loans were intended for companies operating top secret facilities and with DX-rated contracts, which means the Pentagon deems them of highest national priority. “I am not sure that companies with DX-rated contracts are the ones that have the most critical needs. They have had a little less than 20 companies reach out to date,” Lord said. The Treasury Department has been in consultation with the Pentagon, and it's been open to ways the loan program could be expanded ― potentially to firms the Pentagon designates, Lord said. “So I'm hoping that early next week, between the Treasury Department and the Department of Defense, we can come back with a little bit more fidelity to the defense industrial base to better identify who might most benefit from this particular money,” Lord said. The agency had set a May 1 deadline for applications. The $17 billion tranche in the CARES Act for COVID-19 relief was widely assumed to be targeted at Boeing, which is a prime defense contractor and had indicated that it might seek assistance. However, U.S. lawmakers have said the loans are intended to span the defense supply chain, said Andrew Hunter, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies's Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group. “I would just say the requirements under that program are pretty strict that," he said. "You have to be really in desperate need for financing and have no access to other forms of financing, you have to accept a lot of limits on how the business operates: [on] share buybacks, dividends, executive compensation. And so it's really been designed and set up as a lender of last resort to firms that really need that assistance.” https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/04/30/only-20-defense-firms-sought-17-billion-in-covid-loans-now-the-trump-administration-is-weighing-a-fix/
May 16, 2024 | International, Aerospace
A leading lawmaker says more than 100 undelivered F-35s could be parked at Lockheed Martin facilities, calling the situation "unacceptable."